Students in action at film festival

Students have arrived in Wrexham for the festival

A row between neighbours over a bin; tales about furniture stores and ghost stories could be the Hollywood films of tomorrow.

Wannabe directors from across Europe have flown into north Wales to showcase their work at an international film festival.

The Grassroots project - which enables students to make a three minute documentary - is part of Wrexham's Golden Jubilee Arts Festival.

Mans Berthas has made a film about Ikea

Yale college student Matthew Sharpe decided to make a film about his grandmother who died in a fire when he was 13.

"I found it quite hard to edit the footage at first because I had to look at old footage and see memories and it was quite upsetting," he said.

"When I thought about it as being a piece to say goodbye it inspired me to plod on, it is a final reminder, like a gravestone."

The 19-year-old added: "It's been a valuable lesson and taught me a lot."

I really like the fact that we've communicated with other countries and I've never done a documentary before so that's really interesting

Hannah Ellis

The aim of the scheme is to broaden perceptions of European life and encourage the formation of relationships between people from Wales, Finland, Spain and Sweden.

Project coordinator, Simon Collinge, says it has been well received: "This project is to help students to tell stories, produce documentaries and to look at what to do next and sell and market the product."

Mans Berthas has flown in from Sweden and he hopes his documentary about furniture company Ikea will give his career a boost.

Simon Collinge has taught Yale students

The 22-year-old already runs a production firm in his native country but he plans to send his documentary to local television stations.

His film is about a popular phenomena in north Sweden - people from as far a field as Norway travel to the store for their holidays and camp outside.

He said: "They live in the caravans and some of them stay there for one week or more, just shopping.

"There's a big highway too just next to Ikea so the environment isn't to nice."

To produce his piece, Mans stayed alongside the holidaymakers for seven days to interview them.

Nineteen year old Hannah Ellis from Wrexham said the experience had been wonderful.

"I really like the fact that we've communicated with other countries and I've never done a documentary before so that's really interesting."